Nothing's Fair in Love and War
by s0xX0rZ
Summary: AU; Melody's your average girl. She's in a foreign exchange program, and the only thing NOT normal seems to be the ppl around her. Not that it matters to her, seeing as she doesn't have friends & everyone hates her...


Kon'nichi wa minna-san! I'm Hikari no Hoshi, and for once in my life, I'M WRITING SOMETHING SERIOUS!!! ...To some extent... Yes, I write serious things. I can't be all fun and games, ne? ...Don't look at me like that, Otou-san... No, my stories are NOT completely random! ...Well, that was only because I had caffeine! ...So what if it was for school? I still got an A. ...Riiiiight... Otou-san, you have a strange sense of humor.  
  
Anyway this is, with no doubt, an AU. A BIIIIIIIIIG AU. And no, it's not a Marry Sue. My OC has plenty of faults, and she does some things I don't think I'd ever even consider doing. The story takes place after Duelist Kingdom AND RYOU BAKURA WAS NOT INVOLVED WITH THAT AT ALL!! Therefore, only Yugi knows about Yami. (If you think about it, the only reason the others learned about him was because of the whole incident with Yami Bakura - Bakura in this fic - and I doubt they would have figured it out otherwise. Yugi himself, in this fic, probably figured it out during his second duel with Kaiba and, although Yami practically yelled the whole thing with there being "two Yugis" at Pegasus during their duel, the only reason Anzu and Jounouchi understood it, judging be their reactions, was because of Anzu's vague memory of being trapped in a card.)Whoa, long sentence... @_@  
  
I know you're sick of me blabbering, but one more important note. I think I've completely changed Malik's story. Oh, well. You'll see what I mean later on. And Yami Malik is in the rod, as opposed to Malik's tattoo or whatever it was in the series. *sweat drop* Anyway, the yamis can create their own bodies if they feel like it, okay? Okay.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or anything else in the fic that belongs to someone who's not me. Right. If that didn't make any sense to you THEN I AM OF THE SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE!!! MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!! *cough, cough* This disclaimer goes for the rest of the fic.  
  
ON WITH THE STORY!!!  
  
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Nothing's Fair in Love and War  
  
Chapter 1 - Parents and their Foolish Ideas  
  
*****  
  
Melody sighed and quietly banged her head against the plane window. She used to think flying was fun, but it had from there to boring, to just plain painful. How long had she been on the plane anyway? It felt like at least a year. She knew going to Japan was a bad idea.  
  
No one had asked her if she wanted to go to Japan. It was her school's idea and her parents had thought it was brilliant. Her old high school was getting really into some sort of foreign exchange program, and once the principal found out she could speak Japanese he immediately found out what schools were part of the program in Japan. He found one with an open spot and called her parents. Before she knew it, Melody was enrolled in Domino High.  
  
The whole reason for this, Melody thought, was so the American school could show off. Everyone she knew, with the exception of her family and close friends, thought she was SO perfect and SO smart and SO likely to achieve. But she wasn't. She was clumsy, she lacked common sense, and she was far from confidant. It wasn't HER fault she loved to read, it wasn't HER fault she did all her school work, and it wasn't HER fault she was one of the rare few who paid attention in class. But all this led up to her position as "smartest kid in town." And yet not one person considered she might not WANT to be in Japan.  
  
"We will be landing in ten minutes." The intercom crackled to life and Melody could hear the sighs of relief from the plane's passengers. She even heard a faint "Thank Kami-sama!" from the back of the plane.  
  
'Alright so when you get to the airport,' Melody went over what her mother had told her to do, 'look for a Hiro Ashiato. Or Ashiato Hiro seeing as I'm in Japan...' She pondered on that for a moment. Introducing herself as "Campbell Melody" instead of "Melody Campbell" would be odd... 'And I should be staying with him and two other boys... Ryou Bakura and Malik Ishtar... Or Bakura Ryou and Ishtar Malik...' She corrected herself. 'But this foreign exchange program thing is kind of weird. Don't these things usually happen while school's out? And isn't it only one student to a family?' She thought about this and watched Japan get nearer and nearer...  
  
~*~  
  
Ashiato glanced down at his watch again. "The flight's late..." He heard the boy to his right mutter.  
  
"We've been bored for the past several hours, Malik," The boy to Ashiato's left replied. "A few more minutes wouldn't hurt."  
  
"Oh, yes it could," the other snapped back. "Don't you realize that there are 2,523,456,343 dots on the ceiling? Or have you not reached that state in boredom, Ryou?" Ashiato rolled his eyes as Ryou sweat dropped.  
  
"Malik, if you want something to do," The Japanese man started, "You could go buy a magazine or something."  
  
"Nah, I don't quiet understand your money yet... Ryou, would YOU like to go get your poor friend a magazine?"  
  
Ryou gave Malik a side ways glance, "And you think *I* understand yen?" This was followed by vigorous nodding and Ryou sweat dropped yet again, "Well, I-" He was cut off by a loud voice over the intercom.  
  
"Flight a-27 is now landing."  
  
"HELL YEAH!" Malik whooped as he grabbed Ryou and Ashiato and ran over to the gate through which some American girl named Melody would being making her big entrance to Japan.  
  
"Please don't swear-" Ashiato began, but was cut off when a large women pushed past him to greet what appeared to be her husband and fluffy poodle clad in hot pink ribbons.  
  
"GIGI!!!!" She exclaimed and gave the poor dog a bone-shattering hug. Malik snickered slightly and Ashiato straightened his glasses.  
  
"Wait a minute," Ryou said as he watched the people spilled out of the gateway like bees defending their hive, "shouldn't you be holding up that sign or something?"  
  
"Oh! Yes!" Ashiato rummaged though his unorganized bag and pulled out a slightly bent up sign. "Ew... Malik did you spill your drink on my sign?!"  
  
"How come you always blame everything on ME?!" Malik asked indignantly.  
  
"Because it's always your fault!" Was the answer.  
  
The boy in question crossed his arms and scowled. "Well I didn't do it this time. Ryou was the one with the coke."  
  
The other teen sweat dropped nervously. "Heh..."  
  
"Hey! Over here!" The males turned their attention from the wet sign to a small girl running towards them. She had thick brown hair that swam out behind her as she ran. She had bright green eyes that sparkled in the bright airport lights. And, Malik thought, she would be quite attractive if wasn't so short. She couldn't be more than five feet tall and if it wasn't for her chest he would have thought she was about twelve. "Hey." The girl repeated when she caught up with them. "Watashi wa Campbell Melody. You're Ashiato, right?" She turned to the short man (though he was still about three inches taller than she was) with thin black hair and thick glass.  
  
He nodded. "This is Bakura Ryou," he gestured toward a pale boy with moonlight white hair that looked as though it hadn't scissors nor brush in years. "And that's Ishtar Malik, who I've already discovered is the root of all evil." A tall, muscular Egyptian boy with an insane amount of jewelry on, shoulder length golden hair and lavender eyes sweat dropped.  
  
"Hey... Is this about that kid's ice cream I stole? 'Cause a swear he gave it to me."  
  
"Right, Malik. And I enjoyed hanging around the Tokyo airport for sixteen hours."  
  
"You were in the airport for sixteen hours, Ashiato-san?" Melody wanted to know.  
  
"Sadly, yes. The old man now knows the airport better than the back of his hand." Malik replied. Then he added, "And he's never even been on a plane. Sad, ne?"  
  
The American nodded. "Why were you in the airport so long?" the girl asked.  
  
"Let's see..." Ashiato thought a moment, then continued, "Malik arrived at 9 PM yesterday, Ryou's flight landed at 5 AM, and you got here at half past noon. Add the 15 minutes I spent waiting for Malik's flight, and the time it took for me to find the gate plus the time we've spent talking with you, and you get sixteen hours, give or take a few minutes."  
  
"Well why didn't you just go back home?" Melody wondered out loud.  
  
Ryou glanced down at her. "Do you have any idea how long it takes to drive from here to Domino? He'd have to have driven back as soon as he got home."  
  
"Ahhh..." Stupid question, Melody thought. Oh, well. They didn't know she supposed to be some nerd who knew all the answers to everything. That's what the idiots at her old school thought; not the three people standing in front of her. "So what about lunch?" She asked as her stomach growled loudly. Melody blushed and quickly added, "They didn't feed us on the plane."  
  
Ashiato pointed down the airport hallway (or highway, seeing as it was completely flocked with hurrying people). "There's a deli down there. We can get sandwiches and eat them in the car."  
  
~*~  
  
"Ooooohhhh..." Melody gasped, "is that a book store?!" She shifted the turkey sandwich clutched in one hand to the other so she could point with her right hand.  
  
"Yeah, why?" Malik answered.  
  
"Can I get one? I finished mine on the plane."  
  
Ashiato shook his head. "You can get one out of the library tomorrow."  
  
"Demo..." She called as Ryou dragged her away from the said store.  
  
"It's not like you can read it in the car," he reasoned. "You'll get a headache."  
  
"Not everyone gets a headache from reading in the car," Malik remarked absentmindedly. "My sister doesn't."  
  
"Neither do I!" Melody exclaimed and tried to free herself from Ryou's grip.  
  
"Tell you what, Melody," Ashiato said. "You can walked out of this God- forsaken place like a civilized person and get a book tomorrow, or you can be dragged out of here and NOT get a book to tomorrow." With that, he shifted his grip on one of the girl in question's bags (he insisted on carrying them, after all she WAS a lady) and stomped toward the exit doors. Melody stuck her tongue out at his back, and... walked into a pillar.  
  
"Ow..." Ryou sweat dropped and Malik bit back a laugh.  
  
~*~  
  
"Can we stop for ice cream?"  
  
Ashiato groaned, "For the last time, Malik, NO!!!!"  
  
"Didn't you steal some from that boy?"  
  
"Ryou, he OFFERED it to me! I just took advantage of the situation..."  
  
Melody sighed and glared at the car's ceiling. She was sitting between Ryou and Malik in the back of her caretaker's battered car. Malik was in a bit of a bad mood because Ashiato had kicked him out of the front seat for "driving him to the doors of insanity's house" by playing with the light above his head. The boy wouldn't have minded so much if he hadn't just won a HUGE fight with the other two teens over the seat and spent a good ten minutes gloating about it. Now he insisted he needed ice cream to cheer himself up. Yeah, right.  
  
The two other exchange students had finished their argument (if you could call it that) and were now staring blankly out the window. Ten minutes passed in silence; then...  
  
"I'm bored." Ashiato looked like he was about to seriously harm the Egyptian boy at this point. He looked like he was counting then he answered.  
  
"All right then, why don't you three tell each other about yourselves."  
  
The three banned to the back seat cringed. Those were the dreaded words adults used to "promote social activities." Not exactly the best thing to say to three teens who had fought tooth and claw for the front seat some thirty minutes before.  
  
"Um..." Ryou started. "I'm here because my father was kind of sick of lunging me around on his archeological expeditions. He's originally from Japan, so he figured he'd just send me here instead of England because... because weird stuff happened in England." Something about the way he said that made Melody not quite believe him.  
  
"What kind of... things...?" Malik inquired.  
  
"I'd rather not talk about it." Ryou answered and slumped down in his seat.  
  
There was silence for a moment, then Malik stretched his arms and said, "Well, quite frankly, I think my sister is trying to get rid of me. She's been planning it for years; I suddenly realize why she force me to learn Japanese." He grinned. "But, honestly, do you think I'm that bad?"  
  
"Let's just put it this way: I've only known you for a few hours," Answered Melody, "and I'm already understanding what your sister was thinking."  
  
"Oh, so then why are you here? Parents ran out of money to buy you books?" He snapped back.  
  
Melody blushed, "Actually... they want to show me off."  
  
"What do you mean?" Ryou asked.  
  
"Well... I've always made good grades. I've always studied and pay attention and class and stuff and nobody ever thought I was THAT smart. Just slightly above normal intelligence. But then I entered high school... and all the kids stopped caring about school... and, suddenly, I was the only A student in a sea of D's and F's. And somehow... that made me smarter in other peoples' eyes. And my parents want to prove that I am THE best, even though I'm not."  
  
"Geez," Malik said as Ryou shook his head. "American society must be slipping."  
  
"I know." Said Melody. "I know." 


End file.
